So I am "home" for Thanksgiving and feeling so much nostalgia it freaks me out. For some reason I feel like I "flew" home for a break or something. I haven't been back home in a month, maybe. But this time the house smells like pumpkin pie...we had our celebration two days later. And during the night the weather was so cold it didn't feel like Thailand. And I had interesting dreams too.

So much nostalgia freaks me out. Especially smells and scents that remind me of times gone by. Right now the smell of pumpkin pie is freaking me out.

I guess for the past two months I've immersed myself in Thai culture and it's another world...now I come home and everything is so reminiscent of American culture. :P I've always had trouble living two lives; you cannot give your all to both. I need to learn to be more flexible I guess...and to have a more stable worldview that doesn't start to cave under the pressure of little things like nostalgia. :-)

"Behold, I will create
new heavens and a new earth.
The former things will not be remembered,
nor will they come to mind.

But be glad and rejoice forever
in what I will create,
for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight
and its people a joy.

I will rejoice over Jerusalem
and take delight in my people;
the sound of weeping and of crying
will be heard in it no more.

"Never again will there be in it
an infant who lives but a few days,
or an old man who does not live out his years;
he who dies at a hundred
will be thought a mere youth;
he who fails to reach a hundred
will be considered accursed.

They will build houses and dwell in them;
they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

No longer will they build houses and others live in them,
or plant and others eat.
For as the days of a tree,
so will be the days of my people;
my chosen ones will long enjoy
the works of their hands.

They will not toil in vain
or bear children doomed to misfortune;
for they will be a people blessed by the LORD,
they and their descendants with them.

Before they call I will answer;
while they are still speaking I will hear.

The wolf and the lamb will feed together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox,
but dust will be the serpent's food.
They will neither harm nor destroy
on all my holy mountain,"
says the LORD.

~ Isaiah 55:17-25

" 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I myself will take a shoot from the very top of a cedar and plant it; I will break off a tender sprig from its topmost shoots and plant it on a high and lofty mountain. On the mountain heights of Israel I will plant it; it will produce branches and bear fruit and become a splendid cedar. Birds of every kind will nest in it; they will find shelter in the shade of its branches. All the trees of the field will know that I the LORD bring down the tall tree and make the low tree grow tall. I dry up the green tree and make the dry tree flourish.
" 'I the LORD have spoken, and I will do it.' "

~ Ezekiel 17:22-24

She's still hanging in there...

So it really doesn't look like little Artemis is going to make it...

But yes, I am certain God cares - even for little kittens...even when they don't make it.

Every Season
Nichole Nordeman

Every evening sky, an invitation
To trace the patterned stars
And early in July, a celebration
For freedom that is ours
And I notice You
In children’s games
In those who watch them from the shade
Every drop of sun is full of fun and wonder
You are summer

And even when the trees have just surrendered
To the harvest time
Forfeiting their leaves in late September
And sending us inside
Still I notice You when change begins
And I am braced for colder winds
I will offer thanks for what has been and was to come
You are autumn

And everything in time and under heaven
Finally falls asleep
Wrapped in blankets white, all creation
Shivers underneath
And still I notice you
When branches crack
And in my breath on frosted glass
Even now in death, You open doors for life to enter
You are winter

And everything that’s new has bravely surfaced
Teaching us to breathe
What was frozen through is newly purposed
Turning all things green
So it is with You
And how You make me new
With every season’s change
And so it will be
As You are re-creating me
Summer, autumn, winter, spring

It is so sad...one of the little kittens here at the office seems to be dying. It is the cute one, too. Most everyone says it's going to die, but if only it could hold on just a bit more...

And this is why I don't want any pets. It's hard to face the idea of it dying, and this is not even my kitten.

But perhaps there is hope...God cares for the sparrows, and I can see His care for kittens in their delicately formed paws and pleading yet playful eyes. He formed them so gently and beautifully. And whether or not this little kitty makes it, God cares for it...for us.

A great excerpt from a counseling book I'm reading, from a section titled "Don't Try to Do Good":

"The object of helping others though counseling or other similar work is to assist them in marshaling their own strengths so that they can confront and deal with their lives effectively. This requires understanding and other skills, but it does not need the overkill of doing good through imposing decisions and strategies on others. One element that every good relationship requires - whether in love or counseling - is the kind of self-restraint that acknowledges and respects the potential of the other to begin to put order into the confusion of his or her life. We can give others our time, our understanding, and our honest selves, but what we do beyond that may be quite harmful if it proceeds from our need to do good.

"It is an enormous gift to make ourselves present in a responsive and understanding way in the lives of others without trampling all over them. As psychologist Carl Rogers once noted, it takes a lot of discipline to do what we can for others and then, literally, let them be. The real good that we accomplish flows from those relationships in which we have come to terms with our own needs to redesign the lives and plans of others. Self-conscious do-gooding may be one of the signs that we should inspect our own emotional lives more carefully and face honestly any need we may have which could interfere with helping others to take care of their own lives. The people we help will be freer and so will we."

(The article isn't credited. :P)

a teeny bit overwhelmed...

wow...today just flew by! yay...

Wow...I cannot believe I posted those three posts this morning before work. Either I was half asleep or today was sufficiently lengthy and draining to make this morning seem like days away.

Though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,

yet I will rejoice in the LORD,
I will be joyful in God my Savior.

- Habakkuk 3:17-18

So...I can go from the Tower of Babel to Hershey's chocolate in less than half a minute, lol. And no, as far as I know right now there is no connection between the two. But maybe one can be found...

Sometimes we get tired of doing all the little things from day to day, of living a life made up of a bunch of small, seemingly unconnected parts...of chipping away at the dull but needed mundane things.

Now, what if this is the case, but one day someone comes along with a challenge, a higher calling...albeit a very difficult one?

I think the funny thing is that often what happens is we slip back into the mundane and use it as an excuse to avoid what we wished for in the first place. It may be out of fear of our lack of capability or else not wanting to be disturbed from our "comfort." I don't really think such comfort is truly comfort...we can live satiated lives and not be comfortable. I think the more difficult calling is ultimately the more "comfortable" one. But it scares us, and we manage to convince ourselves to hide away in tasks that exploit something like one-tenth of our true capability as humans and even less of our weakness made strong in Christ.

I think what we answer to our mental contemplations about this is so much of it. It's our minds that fear, and tell our bodies to settle back into "comfort" and inaction. Half the action is the choice made in the mind...and choosing to shy away in our minds is tantamount to binding ourselves to inaction, because once we make that mental choice, our minds work with us and our choice to find evidence to convince us that what we want really is best...

...after awhile it becomes hard to tell truth from deceit. We so easily deceive ourselves!

"I have no doubt whatever that most people live, whether physically, intellectually, or morally, in a very restricted circle of their potential being. They make use of a very small portion of their possible consciousness... We all have reservoirs of life to draw upon, of which we do not dream." ~ William James

'"For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ.' ~ 1 Corinthians 2:16

I am not yet sure of the implications of juxtaposing these this quote and this verse. I'm still thinking about it.

On the one hand, I think that the first quote doesn't take into account our limitedness as human beings. I know that limitedness firsthand; I would like to be so much more than I am, and yet I am not physically capable of it. And I think most people are like that; their minds think much farther than what they can, in their physical humanness, handle. Even the amount of consciousness we make use of, we cannot handle.

Yet 1 Corinthians 2:16, evaluated next to this verse, evokes an interesting thought - I think that in Christ, we do have "reservoirs of life" to draw upon, of which we do not (cannot) dream. "But we have the mind of Christ..." - that is something to think about. If William James implied such things about the human mind, what there must be to us in Christ!

We cannot live in ignorant bliss! It is oxymoronic. If we are wholly ignorant, is it doubtful we can live in bliss, because we don't know what bliss is...we are only living in what we think is bliss!

random random Saturday night post

This has been a crazy week and I'm so very tired.

I am so glad P'Jai is moving in tomorrow! I almost typed that last sentence as "a roommate to talk to" - lol. I seriously need someone to talk to so I don't go crazy...:)